Voices
conducted their amorous business).
And if the U.S. army had a protocol
against adulterous affairs, it sure
wasn’t apparent on the streets of
Saigon. During the Vietnam War,
too, Bangkok’s most famous red
light district, Patpong, came to
prominence as the direct result of
American GIs on R&R.
Though despite the furtive promises of that false cliché, “me love
you long time,” in the evening, the
morning is often one of furtive denial. When the U.S. left Vietnam,
it left behind thousands of mixedraced children known as con lai,
and their collective effort to enter the U.S. took years before they
found success. By then so many
had been deprived of education
that they ended up subsisting in
ethnic enclaves of Little Saigon;
some joined gangs. That is to say,
the army that ventures overseas
often leaves a division or two of
unwanted brood. Think, too, of the
thousands of Amerasians still living
in poverty around Subic Bay in the
Philippines — at one point the largest U.S. defense facility overseas.
If there is a sense of inequality
these days when sex and the army
are concerned, it has to do with
how little “honey” can be had in the
Middle East even if one has plenty
ANDREW
LAM
HUFFINGTON
12.02.12
of money, given the nature of the
way wars are conducted and the
prohibitive culture of the region.
A soldier who ventures alone outside his base in Iraq or Afghanistan
One can always rely on
this old savory caveat: sex
follows the army the way
bottle flies follow fresh dung.”
is a soldier begging to be captured
or killed. Compared to past wars,
there are few sexual outlets available; but, meanwhile, the top brass
can fly to and fro with their girlfriends-cum-biographers in private
jets. Their grand lifestyles stand in
sharp contrast to those trudging on
the ground.
This undoubtedly leaves an isolated army full of frustrated men
and women. The real untold story is
what was and still is going on sexually with these tens of thousands of
young men and women hunkered
down during the Iraqi occupation
and now in Afghanistan, a collective
libido running amok. That’s a subject about which a real biographer
or historian, not to mention a few
— please excuse the pun — embedded journalists, could write
an epic tome.